I have an old HP 4Plus parallel port printer of which I am fond. One of my computers does not have a parallel port and so I have used a cheap PCI parallel port card and with the addition of a file in /etc/modprobe.d this works well with the 2.6.32 kernel.

I tried the same thing on this computer with a later Puppy (Saluki) using the 3.2.8 kernel and it does not work because there are no kernel parport drivers . Also explains why it works in Linux Mint 10 but not 11.

My question is, can they be added using insmod? Bit out of my depth about here.

The 4 Plus dates from an era when printers were made to last. Mine got it's fuser jammed recently with a broken gear tooth and when I pulled it apart found how well it was made. Found a local printer guy that had cut his teeth on these and he replaced the fuser and the nylon gear that had got damaged by the jammed fuser and put in new exit rollers for 120 nzd.

Unfortunately my joy was misplaced! I have two computers both with Saluki but one with an original parallel port and the other with a parallel port card.

What you suggested worked fine on the machine with a parallel port. Cups 1.3.11 brought up the LPT option and it worked but it was working anyway. On the machine with the ide parallel port card, lsmod gave:

parport_pc used by 0
parport used by 2 parport_pc,lp
lp used by 0

I used modprobe lp and it brought up a warning about the file I had inserted in /etc/ modprobe.d called parport_pc.conf with the contents

options parport_pc=0xb800 and said it was ignoring this line.

When I went to install the printer it did not bring up the LPT option.

I did not think these drivers were included in the 3.2.8 kernel but they are. The same three so interesting to know what the difference is between the kernels. It is not only a Puppy thing. Mint 10 works fine with the extra file in modprobe.d but Mint 11 won't.

silly me for butting in but have you made sure the printer is online. the old 4 models have the online/offline button... I am guilty of this with miniport wifi cards is why I thought of it. simple gotcha maybe.